Liberation Time Mculo: Re Education from Saints and Sinners?

Liberation Time Mculo: Re Education from Saints and Sinners?: "FEEL and grow rich Redesigning This Generations Ideas of Success The First Chapter: ‘ The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady’ In all my ..."

Re Education from Saints and Sinners?

FEEL and grow rich

Redesigning This Generations Ideas of Success

The First Chapter:

 ‘The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady’

In all my thirty three years as a citizen of planet Earth, I have seen and heard of just a handful of people who have acquired a level of success that could be described as perfect. So much stands in the way of our idea of perfection that we have learned to accept that it is inevitable to suffer and struggle before any success can be enjoyed in life.

Perfection then becomes a utopian ideal that is only achieved by the divinely gifted, arduously industrious and more often then not, the rich.

Thus we have composed many tales and parables describing how many of the  worlds avatars have had to go through countless adversities in order to prove themselves either divine or even appear as conquerors of our enemies, aging and ultimate decay.

To the ones who have conquered death, we attribute the most divine status, calling them either messiahs and even worshipping them as God Men.

Isn’t it interesting that most if not all these messiahs have been males, individual and especially gifted men who often exhibited an ambiguous and sometimes questionable relationship with women?

Remember what Jesus Christ said to his dearest mother after he’d been away for three days, how about Ghandi’s alleged ill-treatment or neglect of his wife, we all know about the Tuff Gong ‘Bob Marley’s’ tumultuous relationship with the devoted Rita, how about Dr Nelson R. Mandela’s three marriages and Dr Martin Luther Kings alleged secret adulterous affair with a certain European lady?

The list is too long without even the addition of the much debated nature of the prophet Muhammad’s marriages to his women, some as young as fourteen years old.

These people who have had a great impact on history and continue to exert their influence on the relationships between men and women today are of course only human and they should be forgiven for acting as they did.  Above all that, it is their deep impact on the lives of millions which surely elevates them above the heads of other mere mortals.The one crucial problem is that this so called ‘Man’s man world’ is not working favourably for neither of us and the more we persist with our out-dated ways of thinking and feeling, the deeper we get into an unfixable tangle.

Should we then conclude that God is a man, usually of noble ‘birth’, coming from a long and established lineage of heroic men and women? Although some religions, such as Islam and even the pseudo-religious tradition called Buddhism do not even conceive of God as any kind of man or woman, it seems easier to simply speak of a HIM whenever this Enigmatic and Self Created Entity is explained to one and all. And this is accepted by a lot of people to such an extent that one might as well speak of natural democracy. It is taboo to speak of God or God men as if one were describing women, that wretched of all sexes.

To an unbiased observer of history, it should be clear that the man’s world phenomenon has been deliberately created in order to set up women, just as many biblical verses were used to create a superiority complex between Black and White people. The fact that there is no such thing as a truly white person, unless they are out cold, and there is no such thing as a black person unless they’ve been dipped in coal or burnt by the sun clearly doesn’t matter now; our ancestors have said it is so therefore it should remain so. But is it reality, truth?

The aim of the following two chapters is to help guide us all towards a better relationship with each other as men and women; this guidance is for the purpose of unification. The reason for the unification can be described as what the Rastafarians call ‘the Balance of Creation’.

This vital balance is crucial if humanity is to progress from the aggressive-cerebral and ever more technocratic state that we found ourselves in, where it is still difficult for a woman or girl to charge an aggressor or exploitative rapist due to the many humiliations she has endure at the male dominated police stations, hospitals and even in her own home where she can be harassed or even disowned. I aim to encourage us all to FEEL rather than simply think before we Act.

…the Sinner Lady

As I write this I am listening to a Jazz album titled, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus. This recording from 1963 was described by its famous composer as “ethnic-folk dance music’ and was hailed as the best Jazz recording in Jazz history by some of the music’s purists. I am now listening to an exquisitely crafted ‘movement’- track 3 which is tentatively titled Track C – Group Dancers –

“(Soul Fusion) Freewoman and Oh, This Freedom’s Slave Cries”. The last and final movement is called “ Stop, Look and Sing Songs of Revolutions!”,

 “Saint and Sinner Join in Merriment on Battlefront”,

“Of Love, Pain , and Passioned Revolt, Then Farewell, My Beloved , ‘Til its Freedom Day”.

Yes dear reader, such are the titles of the great Jazz album. You can go to the internet or try to find this brilliant piece of Jazz Art if you doubt the truth of this. Playing this album in my laptop, it only appears as four simple titles but on the actual album sleeves the above are the really evocative titles. I point this out as a way to reconnect the manner in which both literature and many other forms of expressive arts, such as Jazz have often attempted to tackle the challenges of Liberation from the personal sort and also the universal kind.

Listening and reading these songs one can tell that the great Bass/Piano player had a lot on his heart and mind and that it was somehow perfectly expressed through the sound of music. The sound is both celebratory and engagingly complex in that soulful way that only Mingus could conjure up.

It is as if this is a classical music composition aptly set to a Jazz medium, the trumpets and the cello’s and piano notes burst and whirl in such a way that I can almost ‘See’ the adventures of this allegorical couple as they engage in the Civil Rights struggles of America, yet at the same time I ‘perceive’ a poor African preacher man who has a relationship with a female brothel ‘queen’ who is both beautiful and ambitious to be Free, in a political, emotional and psychological sense. Then again a woman can be called Sinner for many reasons, even her success can bring about accusations and rumours that she has slept her way to the top. But then again, this is art and this is what I know as one of the most intricate of Art-forms, Jazz - and it has the tendency to defy any logical explanation or elucidation since even as it was composed, the players and the engineers must have been going through various emotions that are totally different to what I feel right now.

But in a nutshell, the Sinner Lady part is the one that catches my attention for we are not short of Saints, but all of history is bursting with stories of Sinner Lady’s who have lead many a hero to war and sometimes even paving the way for the foundation of  many nations.

In case the reader thinks that I have digressed from the initial point, please be reminded. The aim is to show that freedom or liberation from all sins cannot be achieved only through the toil and bloody genius of men, but women have been and will always be the Queen Alpha’s and Queen Omega’s of the real world. One can even describe the woman as the steering or the rudder of the ship while the man is the outer body, the one that is seen to struggle with the elements and appears victorious or defeated in the end.

There is something to be learned from the way the world is governed today, seemingly by corrupt politicians (both men and women) and their financiers the Banks and the religious propagandists.

The way of men is wrongly described as the way of the strong, stern and affirmative, men are supposed to not cry, raise children or mind the hearth as this has been traditionally designated to what some call the fairer sex. Many gender activists and pioneering women have done much to blur these perceptions by achieving unimaginable success in fields of endeavour that have been seen to be divinely designed exclusively for men.

Yet somehow even as these women rise to ‘power’ their success is described as a result of changes ‘allowed’ by men, yet they have at most times it is clear that these ‘wonder-strong women’ have achieved their goals despite men.

This is where we must recall the principle I have mentioned as ‘The Balance of Creation’. Sisters and brothers, contrary to what we are taught at schools, this world is not established on the principles of Competition, it is founded upon unmistakable and remarkably intelligent Divine laws. Allow me to describe just two.

With the help of one of the Master Teachers, I quote:

“Maat, the 4^th sphere of the Tree of Life manifests in Man’s spirit as the universally felt need for order (law). To the spiritually immature, law or order is put in place through rules backed by coercive force for the purpose of achieving social peace and harmony. It is unfortunate that almost 6000 years of recorded history has not dispelled this fallacy. It must be understood that the rules constituting Man’s laws – and supposedly God’s law as well – are based on the belief that the human (kind of man, inferior or sahu man) represents the totality of Man.” – ( p.75, Ra Un Nefer Amen – Maat – The 11 Laws of God )

The knowledge of mankind’s good and evil is vast and it is one of the reasons why we still fail to evolve into higher beings. We still struggle with the simplest of emotions and thoughts in our attempts to deal with the issues in our lives, issues such as death and birth still astound us and we generally act exactly as our forebears have done, going through elaborate rituals and ceremonies that are supposed to help us deal with the joy or the trauma of death. At the end of the day most of us still find ourselves confused and even angry at God when we have to relate to some of our loved ones passage into the other realms – what we call dying.

Women as widows are still the most adversely affected when it comes to dealing with both the emotional and social trauma of their loved ones death.

While every family may be engaged in mourning, women are subjected to so many rules and obligations even when they need to move on and live their lives to the fullest.

Do not get me wrong, I am not saying that we should not honour the memories of our beloved who have passed away, what I am suggesting is that we become more intelligent emotionally and in the way we treat the widows and to respect their feelings too.

In some places women are still forced to marry men that they hardly know or love whenever their husbands pass away, some are expected to wait many years before they even touch or engage in any intimate relationship.

This is accepted by most people who call themselves the preservers of sacred and ancient traditions, but they fail to realise that what they call ancient may simply be a construction of a few hundred years ago, and that it was constructed to subdue and control women and girls.

I was watching a program on TV and I was appalled when I saw rural women agreeing to receive dowry or ilobolo from boys or men, who have carried off their daughters, raped them and claimed to want to marry them. Some of the girls were as young as 14 years and they were mostly carried off as they came from school. The teachers interviewed sounded powerless, so much for their education.

But the most shocking revelations came from the mothers; those neglected and ‘traditionalised’ women who have been rendered powerless by both religious and socio-economic factors.

As I found myself asking ‘what kind of mother would allow such a thing to happen to her child?’ One woman said that this was the reason why she had a daughter in the first place.

That is when I realised that the problem might be deeper than economics, religion or history.

It is simply a matter of ignorance about the Tree of Life and what it means for all of us.

We shall re-visit the many intricacies of Life’s metaphorical Tree at another time, but I’ll close this chapter with a title of a Jazz poem I read somewhere

“Jazz, Listen to it at your own risk…” and then again, isn’t life all about the many risks we must take in order to make it interesting, learn and then grow richer?

Sho nuff!

MM.

Music Is Life

Works, Sounds and Power

“Men need images. Lacking them they invent idols. Better then, to found the images on realities that lead the true seeker to the source. Maat, who links universal to terrestrial, the divine with the human is incomprehensible to the cerebral intelligence.” – Passages from the Hieroglyphs in the temple in Luxor, Egypt / KMT.

Background

How exactly did the world come into Being, or rather, how did a Being create the world as we know it?

This and other related questions are explored in this work wherein I have also employed the findings, technical scientific research and religious methods of about three theorists to inform and validate my own opinion. I hope that my own perspective is clearly defined to you dear reader. This is one of the questions that have vexed a lot of scientists, religious people and also philosophers. However, more than striving to answer the question of how we and it all came to be, I was also moved by a statement that was made by the man who cleans up around our flat; with a worried expression on his face, he mentioned that the world might be coming to an end on 21 May 2011.

It’s the 16^th as I write this and I am not one who is particularly interested in how we all shall perish, I am also not very interested in prophecies that are spilled out to instil fear and to manipulate naïve people into following some religious doctrine.

But even though I laughed and told the man that ‘no one knows the hour…’ and that even if it all ended, he should not go out in fear or worst, in total ignorance about his Soul, meaning his own Selfhood and sense of purpose.

In parting, I told him that the so called judgement day is today, today is the most important time in his life and he should find joy in it.

As I left him there holding his broom and the cell-phone perpetually tuned to the radio (from whence he’s been receiving these messages from someone they called Harold), I thought to myself – if only most people had a clearer over-standing of their history and the history of the universe, they would readily embrace both life and death as part of the on-going circle of Creation.

Just like many so called religious or spiritual people, I also believe and know that there is a Divine Plan for both mankind and this lovely Earth, and that the best way to be a conscious part of this plan is to become initiated into the secrets of beginnings and endings.

As it will emerge from the quotations and my own findings, it will also be made clear that music, the word and universal regeneration is a sound reality.

So before the end comes upon me, let us begin, because when and if I come back again I might not be interested in such questions anymore. And if I happen to be reincarnated as a humble bee, my sole preoccupation would be to please my dear queen with sweet things, unless of course I perish from stinging you.

In Square Circle: Here’s a guy who works with Sound in order to create the most interesting visual experiences:

“Prudence used to perform his work in clubs as a DJ, but claims that the audience and context of arts festivals are better suited to the philosophical and conceptual approaches of his work. "Science, nature and popular science are all reference points," he explains. "I tend to take ideas and apply them metaphorically to moods in my pieces." Rynth is inspired by antigravity, gyroscopes and the centuries-old concept of The Music of the Spheres, which understands music to be produced as a religious or mathematical concept by the sun, moon and stars.” – (Wired.uk; magazine, April 2011)

·         And here’s a sample of the visuals   

 Personally, I am not surprised that most of the visuals that are created by this man’s ‘experiments’ are circular in nature. This is the natural manifestation of everything as I have already mentioned above. The spherical shape of everything from our globe the Earth to the cellular ‘bodies’ which are the atoms or building blocks of everything also testify to this. Yet my present assignment is not to prove anything in particular, instead I just wanted to provide a ‘testimony’ to the Creators Hand in everything that surrounds us. But of course as it is typical of the atheists to refute anything that mentions the Almighty Creator, or even the extremely misunderstood and hence misused word ‘religion’, I will continue with more facts and stories that have been passed down by both reputable scientists and other wise ones in the rich heritage of the reverential.

·        

·        

Much has been written about the significance of Egypt in the history of the entire world. It has only been the bias or even the racism of the Western (European) world that has made sure that most of this information and knowledge does not reach the rest of us earthlings.

But just like the proverbial phoenix which is perpetually reborn, the truth just keeps rising.

There is no time now to challenge people’s entrenched beliefs in their own falsehoods, what we are interested in is the publication of what is true and fair even beyond individual perceptions. Skeptics and rebels can even find something for their tortured minds in these pages, but for anyone who enjoys the simple pleasure of seeing the cyclic and redemptive love of God in everything; this is just another confirmation of what they ‘know’.

Here’s a taste of what I am talking about:

“…strange to say, the whole number of buildings in stone, as yet known and examined, which were erected on both sides of the river by Egyptians and Ethiopian kings, furnish incontrovertible proof that the long series of temples, cities, sepulchers and monuments in general, exhibit a distinct chronological order, of which the starting point is found in the pyramids, ant the apex of the Delta.” – ( H. Brugsch, Egypt Under the Pharaohs).

And here’s what a more ancient author, none other than the celebrated Greek historian Herodotus had to say about this Nile Valley civilization which continues to inspire us today:

“The Egyptians were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its course into twelve parts. They obtained this knowledge from the stars.”

What then, is the significance of all this information, how can it help us to understand the beginning and perhaps even the signs of the end of the world? Aside from that, what can a young person living today gain from knowledge of ancient Egypt?

Perhaps nothing at all, but an intelligent observer will notice that everything that begins has an ending and that it is possible to ‘read’ the signs and then be able to order or organize ones life purposefully. Because ultimately we all hope to Live a Life of consequence or purpose, for some that purpose is defined by sacred texts while for some it is based on pragmatism.

In our world of fast paced technological advance, where attention is limited to Tweets and companionship is largely defined by the number of digital friends one has on Badoo or Facebook, it is vital that we remind ourselves of our complete dependence on nature and its cycles.  Contrary to popular belief, this notion of knowing about oneself and understanding how nature works with and within us and not against us is vital to our very survival as a species. Humanity itself depends on a conscious and holistic relationship with all life.

A lot of my brothers and sisters now live in virtual reality, a world of demons, demi-gods, hunters and assassins with their own creeds, thought processes and pseudo-mythologies.

These virtual tales inform them just as much as the stories our grandmothers told us, if not much more.

Many of these folks swear that they value human interactivity much more than their virtual worlds and that they are striking a balance between physical/interactive entertainment and the more futuristic inter-tainment from video or play-station games.

But this is so far from the truth. Just ask any woman who has a husband, friend or boyfriend who is a ‘serious gamer’.

This is also true of many of my friends who are football, basketball and any other devoted sports fan. Our conversations are typically filled with references to the next game, the last game or who do we think will reach the Finals?

Of course these should be taken as innocent games and simple and entertaining ways to pass the time. Yet it is equally true that in the urban prisons which we have come to occupy, very few of us ever end up playing any real physical games; that is simply something that we did when we were still growing up.

Our minds and bodies may still be willing to jump, skip and summersault, strategize and execute those moves that also require physical and mental fitness, but time and circumstances or indecision render us incapable of fulfilling these wishes.

Some of us also have some knowledge of how many of these games were invented, it is your assignment to go and research the roots of soccer, basketball and American Football and many of the Olympian sports. The point here is that many of them involve circles and cycles. These circles are not the problem per se; the problem is that many of the myths and imikhuba eyayenziwa during the earlier stages of these games are also back in practice.

We have again become like unwilling spectators in a game of Gladiators, those barbaric Roman and Greek sports where the rich would set warriors against each other or against captured and tortured animals in order to watch the slaughter.

This is now symbolized by the words we use when we watch our modern games, ‘it’s a war’, ‘it’s a tough battle’, ‘oh, shit, look they’re killing them’, ‘DEFENCE/Offence’ , ‘Shoot, Do or Die’ and the list is virtually endless.

What we do not realize or what we are ignoring at our own peril is that WORD Sound Is Power and whether we say these words in jest or meaningfully, it matters very much.

What we are doing is auto-suggesting them, we mean no harm and yet we still cause harm, we may not be able to see it but all we have to do is study the history of the football business, the present crimes within institutions such as FIFA, the EAFA champions league and the South American drug cartels that control most of what happens on and off the field.

A return to humanitarian competition is vital in this time, since we are already so used to competing on every conceivable field globally.

M. M.

The Inner Outer Conversation

Let My People Go…: another look at the sensitive land issue

The matter of nationalisation has been dealt with in this blog, yet simply writing about it can only go so far in addressing it. In my opinion and  the opinions of those that I have quoted, the nationalisation of specific resources and the effect it can have on the macro-economic landscape of Azania (South Africa) has more to do with certain leaders desire to own these sources of power rather than  distribute them equitably. To some this may appear as a subjective statement but as one reads through many serious journalists treatment of this issue, it becomes abundantly clear that this issue of nationalisation is bigger than Malema, the ANC and even the counter-arguments so desperately spouted by neo-liberal elites and opposition parties. The mere fact that this topic has been vexing and dividing the leading party along ideological lines is more than worrying, but what is at the heart of all this noise about nationalisation of mines and redistribution of land? One must necessarily look past the newspaper headlines and the stones being thrown around by leading ANC members at each other, we must look honestly at the history of our country and see just where it all went wrong. In order to gain a clearer and objective view of this matter, it also would help us to understand the objectives of the ANCYL and other unaffiliated youth led movements such as the September National Imbizo ( SNI ), the civil rights movement called Abahlali Basemjondolo, Black Wash and even to an extent the outer-national Rastafari community.

To understand these movements is to see through the majority of Black peoples eyes, to hear with our ears and to experience what we collectively experience. The differences in the organs I have just listed are clear, especially between the latter and the former. They can perceived as bodies existing beyond each others reach and possessing conflicting goals, but that is from the outside looking in. Although I have never been a member of the  leading parties Youth League, I have always supported their more positive and pragmatic moves and statements, that is until the presidency of president Malema who I have found charismatically ‘rude’, but then I’ve also defended him by saying that South African politics always requires an agitator, someone to rattle the old bones and stir people into action; I have however been a member of the Rastafari movement and a secretary/scribe in its Youth structures. Although not defined as a political movement and vocally opposed to most of what modern politics are about, the Rastafari movement is a cultural and intellectual force to be reckoned with, especially at community levels. The problem with both these formations is that although they are both superficially recognisable in the broader community, they are fatally misunderstood or at worst, just not sufficiently supported.

The reason I make the comparisons is because these movements appear to be all striving toward the transformation of our society, essentially we are all aware of the disparities caused by historical factors such as apartheid, colonialism, neo-colonialism and more acutely the inferiority complexes often exhibited by the general Black populace. We are all aiming to address these social ills via our own means, ignoring the facts that we are all liberation pioneers within our own fields, working weekly and yearly to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. The issue of land reform is forever on the Rastafari agenda, but very few of the members ever engage meaningfully with the ANC Youth League, instead some of us have opted to be members of fringe social movements such as SNI, Black Wash et cetera in order to make our voices heard.

Needless to say, there are some Rasta’s who have been members of Umkhonto Wesizwe, the Pan African Congress and the Black Consciousness party, all in attempts to influence or add some spiritual or righteous dimension to the political battle for Black Supremacy* which is ultimately what is really in most of our hearts, the Marcus Garvey inspired cry for ‘Africa for the Africans…’. This is the reason why I said that we must look into our history in order to redefine our collective direction. There is a proverb in IsiZulu that goes ‘Abantu abayi ndawonye bengemanzi’, which roughly translates as; people do not go in one direction as they are not water’, which can be interpreted as, it’s in the nature of people to sometimes disagree. I have always found this axiom interesting in describing the nature of politics globally, so much so that it always made me think of the American political formation of Republicans and Democrats, just two oppositional parties whose agendas are clearly parallel. What I read about these two forces is that they are as their names suggests, they both rule the hearts and minds of most Americans and they only differ in the methods they employ, yet it always seems admirable to me that their system is simpler and adequately clarified to most people who care about politics. This brings us here, were people such as Marcus Garvey, Malcom X and Martin Luther King republican or democratic in thinking or action? Perhaps we should leave that for another day, instead we can focus on the immediate South African leadership by asking the same question. Were the Sisulu’s, Mandela’s, Mbeki’s and Plaatjie’s ideologically more democratic or republican in their attitude regarding matters of land restoration? It is clear that Mandela categorically denied ever being a leader of a socialist, communist or even a Marxist party, while acknowledging that there were certain favours and friendships established with such people as Fidel Castro and Colonel Muamar Qaddafi to name but a few, Mandela was not in the business of following them ideologically. But then understanding that within its structures there were/are people who strongly hold such East European ideals which had been given universal appeal by the actions and personalities such as Che Guevara, Samora Machel and others – and not to mention the support given to Umkhonto Wesizwe during the tough and complex decades of armed struggle, the ANC today has what is called the tripartite alliance consisting of a strong although seemingly neo-liberal communist faction. This sector of the leading party bears very little resemblance to the classic understanding of what communism and socialism is about, this has been majorly highlighted by ANC YL president recently to the humiliation of the autumnal leaders.

Yet before we join the troublesome media headlines and cry ‘Things fall apart and the centre cannot hold’ we need to find better and more practical ways to engage with the Youth League, the various community based movements and instead of complaining on newspapers and blogs, use our hard earned education in economics, communications, social sciences and other fields, to ingeniously lead our country from the precipice of crippling destruction. Perhaps the only reason I say that the league can be steered in the right direction even despite the rhetoric of its leaders is that I trust that they are serious in such statements:

The President of the ANC Youth League is expressing views contained in the ANC Youth League discussion document, which is inspired by the ANC 52nd National Conference`s observation which says "We have only succeeded in redistributing 4% of agricultural land since 1994, while more than 80% of agricultural land remains in the hands of fewer than 50,000 white farmers and agribusinesses. The willing-seller, willing-buyer approach to land acquisition has constrained the pace and efficacy of land reform. It is clear from our experience, that the market is unable to effectively alter the patterns of land ownership in favour of an equitable and efficient distribution of land". – (ANCYL National Working Committee statement on President Jacob Zuma`s comments about Land Reform and Nationalisation of Mines 12 May 2011)

Who Is Maseko

Amangcamane Ayakhuluma!

So I have finally come to deal with the subject of my immediate family. For so long I have been engaged in trying to raise the consciousness of Africans, trying to understand the situation we are all in in order to discover solutions for our emancipation. Emancipation, Freedom, Liberation…all these words mean the same thing, but they are used so frivolously these days, so much that they appear to have lost their original meaning.

Of course we celebrate freedom day on the 27^th of April in S.A., Africa Liberation Day is increasingly celebrated on the 25^th of May in Africa and the Diaspora, and questions of whether we are truly free keep coming causing more frustration.

Some of us are taking the liberal perspective by saying that we can either keep complaining and remain complacent or we can join the celebration of the small yet significant freedoms we have won and do the best we can with what we’re given. It seems there are many people who just like myself are concerned with about the lies that are told daily to them by the so called powerful, here’s a sneak preview of what one ‘family’ or nation is up to:

From the Amangcamane Facebook Page:  Facebook:

Bongani Jakes Maseko: “There's no better tribe than the other but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't tell or write the truth about our history and its origin.Shaka,Mzilikazi and all the other known and then emerging leaders had come from the descendants of the great Nguni founder King Ndlovu(800-900 A.D).The ruling Kings of the time b4,during and after Shaka were all following the Maseko Ngcamane Kings who carried the royal heritage at the centre of the oldest monarchy in the Southern Africa.Shaka(1787-1828) is d founder of the Zulu nation only. When he was born the Maseko's were ruling in Swaziland(SD)under the rulership of King Khabangobe Maseko,the son of King Maphanga kaNgcamane.We, as boMaseko, have taken our surname after King Maseko who lived approximately 1009 to1100. So,if u still feel Maseko's are Zulus, think again! Maseko's in Malawi, are Swazi's. They're the direct descendants of Prince Ngwane Maseko who left SD before the Mfecane wars. Ngwana was the son of King Maphanga and Ngwane was a Dhlamini. Like Abraham,of the Bible,King Ndlovu became the father of many nations,the Xhosa,Zulu,Ndebele Shangane,Thonga,Ndawu & others.Historians have tried to suppress and bury this rich and solid fact of the Nguni's. (over a year ago · Report)”

Ntokozo Siyabonga Maseko: “Sorry for super late reply. School really has me busy. Haven't been get much info on the net hey so Im kinda stuck, but thanx to everyone who has bin sharing the history with us. Its way more informative than the net I tell u. I need someone who will help me out with group admin so inbox me if u'd like to assist. Thanx .Over a year ago · Report”

The interesting thing that can be observed here is how few and far between these exchanges between the Maseko’s are. I also have heard a lot and even read a book about the supposed royal Ngcamane’s, being a Ngcamane myself I seem to have been both emotionally and intellectually drawn into this story of a people who are denied their rightful place and territorial inheritance. The story of the Maseko’s may not be as well known as the one between Palestinians and Jews in Israel, there is no international or even national condemnation of the Swazi regime by the African Union, infact it seems that the AU has accepted as unchangeable all the borders and nervous condition sthat were imposed upon us by colonialists. This is unacceptable and as a Maseko and a human being I cannot sit back and be complacent, many of our African master teachers taught us better than that.

When I first read the book the Return of the Ngcamane Swazi* I had was moved yet just like a lot of people my age who are more focussed on building a better personal life and earn more money, I just did not take it as a priority. Yet as the Swazi people remain sufferers in their own very rich land, impoverished and ruled by a charismatic lunatic who is not even their rightful king, it appears that these days these people have finally grown tired of the status quo. The Swazi kingdom is becoming more and more unstable and it seems like this is the perfect time to re-establish the true nation of the Ngcamane Swazi. But as all this is happening I realise that it would be doubly difficult to gain popular support for the emerging Ngcamane people simply due to lack of accessible information. The Facebook messages from the two Maseko’s I quoted testify to that fact. But in my research I also went to the world famous encyclopaedia called Wikipedia. So while this information is rather disjointed, the statement by sister Ntokozo simply warns that it is best to get together with the elders and find more knowledge from their wizened perspective, this is the generally accepted African way. But for what its worth, here’s a the official info on the Nguni history:

“The ancient history of the Nguni people is wrapped up in their oral history. According to legend they were a people who migrated from Egypt to the Great Lakes region of sub-equatorial Central/East Africa.^[1] They migrated southwards over many centuries, with large herds of Nguni cattle, probably entering what is now South Africa around 2,000 years ago in sporadic settlement, followed by larger waves of migration around 1400 AD. Nguni peoples are pastoralist groups, ethnically part of the greater Bantu group occupying much of the East and Southern parts of Africa. Many tribes and clans were forcibly united under Shaka Zulu. Shaka Zulu's political organisation was efficient in integrating conquered tribes, partly due to the age regiments, where men from different villages bonded with each other. The Nguni tribes kept similar political practises to those used by Shaka Zulu. During the southern African migrations known as mfecane, the Nguni peoples spread across a large part of southern Africa, absorbing, conquering or displacing many other peoples.”

So it appears from this bit of information that even the people of the South actually came from the North. This fact which has been attested to by many historians including the famous Magema Fuze who wrote history from the perspective of the oralists is also supported by archaeologists and scientists.  It now rests on our shoulders to connect the dots. There is also a lot of misinformation and this is fuelled by our civilisations obsession with money and other material gains. Humanity cannot thrive in such a situation and there needs to be Innovative, Creative and even Spiritual activism to transform our lives, it means bravely changing the way we think of ourselves.

 My involvement in the Ancient Egyptian initiation system seems to make more sense when viewed from a perspective of real African history, the test is in making it work for myself and for the larger number of people who love justice and are tired of living a lie.

Further reading into the Wikipedia information reveals another more disturbing yet no surprising fact that history is mostly written by the powerful while the mostly subordinate ‘public’ remains unassumingly complacent. This is an unhealthy situation and it is one of the causes of the on-going lack of Liberation and personal freedoms. The governments of the world have proven in many instances that contrary to what they say and what we are told by mass media, they are not acting on behalf of the people that vote them into power.

Although it seems like it has nothing to with this topic, the new documentary film by the famous David Guggenheim called Waiting for Superman is one of the signs that Truth shall set us free. This story tells us how the American education system is clearly failing the children and therefore the future of our world. We can no longer live within these unjust conditions because the divinity within our humanity will not allow it. “The schooling system is built to make adults happy…to create competitive people…”* says the director in an interview for Moving Pictures.

The outrageous celebrations on our freedom days are silly wastes of money when people are still impoverished materially and ideologically. None of our schools teach us what it means to be a complete human being. One of the famous African shamans (Credo Mutwa) has this to say:

“There is not a single university in Africa, even now which teaches our people the truth about themselves. There is not a single school in South Africa even now which teaches our people about what it means to be an African. Our children who will stone a Sangoma to death, who will burn an Inyanga to death with a petrol soaked car tire even now, do not know, and were never, taught that Africans were once kings of the Americas. They were founders of the amazing Olmec Civilization, whose breath taking relics craved in eternal stone still amaze visitors in museums to this day.

Our children who would gladly spit at the face of a sangoma, who hate the traditional dress of their people, would gladly put on a highland kilt, not knowing that amongst the founders of the Scottish nation were black men and woman and that the surnames of some of these Scotsmen, confirm this. Sholto-Douglas, what does this word mean? What does this Surname mean? Sholto- Douglas. It means Behold the black man. Black knights once fought for the kings of Scotland, and the Danish people who are fraudulently represented in the history books as blond and pink skinned Nordics, had large numbers of black men in their ranks.”

In an age that we proudly call the information age, how can all these facts escape the people who once ruled the world without repose to money? How can we use the internet to keep feeding irrelevant information to our children, have we fallen that far down from our state of grace? To close this topic for now, let us see what else has been said about the Ngcamane Swazi:

 “Following Zwangendaba's death in 1848, succession disputes split the Ngoni people. Zwangendaba's following and the Maseko Ngoni eventually created seven substantial Ngoni kingdoms in Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi.”- Wikipedia.

According to Wikipedia these are some of the Maseko Nguni’s that can be found in Malawi and the Swazi borders:

• Maseko Ngoni of Dedza under Paramount Chief Kachindamoto and Kachere

• Maseko Ngoni of Ntcheu under Paramount Chief Ganya (Successor of Chief Gomani)
• Maseko Ngoni of Thyolo under Paramount Chief Vumbwe

In the Mfecane, the Nguni mixed with the peoples they defeated on their way north. They brought their own military organization and strategies with them and reached eastern Africa between Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa (today's Lake Malawi).”

All this information is very good, but until I speak to the elders I shall hold my peace and be contented with cultivating my Ancient Egyptian inspired Initiation so that we the time is ripe, I and the rest of the Maseko’s I will to lead will bring justice to this part of the world. I say that I will myself to lead them because it is clear to me that it takes Spiritual, Political and Supernatural Will to take on established prejudices, lies and emerge victorious with the Truth. But I am not Superman, I am a divine man who knows where he is from and soon you will too.

Menzi Maseko ©

References

• Ngoni by Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe (The Heritage Library Of African Peoples)
• Mpezeni's Ngoni of Eastern Zambia, 1870–1920, Ph.D. dissertation by William Eugene Rau, 1974
• Bauer, Andreus. Street of Caravans.
• Iliffe, John. Modern History of Tanganjika.
• Mankind, the Illustrated Edncyclopedia of
• Reader, John. Africa, a biography of the Continent.
• Tew, Mary. People of the Lake Nyasa Region

POETrY

The New Poem

It rises to the occasion of the emerging sun

Reports the progress of a people, a season and a warrior who decides to run

The new poem speaks loud about that which is kept secret

Announces to everyone the basic mysteries of interconnected, cosmic existence

There is nothing hidden

Be it from above or from below

The New Poem sings the half forgotten songs of childhood

Adding nothing but the wisdom of fresh experiences

The New Poem is the essence of Conscious Hip Hop

The pause between the break beat

The friction before the heat

The melody that hooks you, so sweet

Sweet because the tongue of the skilful is wilful and bashful while humble

Sweet because while Truth hurts it also opens the wound for cleaning

Against the fragile house of gossip the Truth is never leaning

But searches out the matter and emerges with the better

In Higher Learning the teacher shouted

“I am looking for evidence of Original Thought…”

And a hush fell upon the whole class

Some thinking, ‘What a stupid thing to ask”

While others said

“Original thought is something of the past.

Because what I may think is new, may have already come to pass…”

This is the Mdw Ntr

The writing on the wall, the mystic language of nature…

Is the leaf that’s fallen today the same as that of yesterday?

Is the baby born tomorrow the same as she that’s been sacrificed?

In all the hot pursuit of My Time and No Time, Me Time and even the sublime

The New Poem doesn’t even need to rhyme

It stays inclined

To the listening ear

Dispelling the fear

Removing the tear

Replacing all complaining with clarity

Knowledge

Laughter

Offering

Giving

The New Poem is not concerned with giggles

But with the people it mingles

Searching for the warmth of innocent smiles

The touch of the loverly

The kiss of the friendly

The politics of language, culture and style

It is a poem that sees the cries of slaves

Imprisoned in caves of hate and instead of crying shame, simply and silently works for change